Lady Jane Grey

“ During the first days of September 1548, some fifteen months after the stolen marriage at Chelsea, a funeral procession left Sudeley Castle, and the body of the wife of the Lord Admiral was carried forth to burial, Lady Jane Grey, his ward, then in her twelfth year, acting as chief mourner.61
Jane had good cause to mourn, in other than an official capacity. It is hard to believe that, had Katherine Parr been living, the child she had cared for and who had made her home under her roof, would not have been saved from the doom destined to overtake her not six years later. ”

“ She also was a good Latin scholar, spoke French and Italian as fluently as English, had a smattering of Dutch and German, and was a devourer of works on history.
These two princesses were the highest in station of the accomplished women of the time, but there were many who equalled, and some who surpassed, them in learning. The most remarkable of all for accomplishments was certainly Lady Jane Grey, afterwards the unfortunate queen of a ten-days’ reign. Lady Jane took so kindly to study that she became the marvel of the age for her acquirements. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI
1553 After King Edward’s death—Results to Lady Jane Grey—Northumberland’s schemes—Mary’s escape—Scene at Sion House—Lady Jane brought to the Tower—Quarrel with her husband—Her proclamation as Queen. A boy was dead. A frail little life, long failing, had gone out. ”

“ DUDLEY, Lady JANE (1537–1554) , commonly called Lady Jane Grey, was eldest surviving daughter of Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset, afterwards duke of Suffolk, by Frances, daughter of Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and of Mary, younger sister of Henry VIII. She was thus the cousin of Edward VI, and about the same age, being born at Bradgate, Leicestershire, in October 1537. She had two younger sisters, Catherine and Mary. The beauty of her person was equalled by that of her mind and character ”

“ Their child Frances was the mother of Lady Jane Grey, who was born in 1537. There were two other little girls younger than Lady Jane, Katherine and Mary.
All the three children were treated with very great severity, which was not unusual at that time. Lady Jane, perhaps because she was the eldest girl, was expected to be quite perfect in her manners, movements, and in all that she said; to use her own [Pg 26] striking expression, to do everything "Even so perfectly as God made the world."
Her parents enforced obedience by threatening and taunting her ”

“ In 1553 the Duke of Northumberland, then all powerful, induced Edward VI, in the last weeks of his reign, to make a Will, in which he set aside the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, his sisters, even stigmatizing them as bastards, and thus reversing his father’s testament; and named Lady Jane Grey, his cousin, and in default of her, her sisters Katherine and Mary Grey, as his immediate and legitimate successors. ”

“ The Earl of Warwick, who had been made Duke of Northumberland, had a son named Lord Guildford Dudley, who married the king’s good and beautiful cousin, Lady Jane Grey. These young people were both Protestants, and Northumberland hoped that the people would like to have Lady Jane for their queen, in case the young king should die, better than the Roman Catholic Princess Mary; and then he thought that, as he was the father of Jane’s husband, he might rule the kingdom in her name, and get all the power for himself. ”

“ Here is an elaborate carving, by Dudley, Earl of Warwick, brother to the Lord Dudley who married Lady Jane Grey. It is a shield, bearing the Lion, Bear, and Ragged Staff, and surrounded by a wreath of oak leaves, roses, and acorns, all cut in the stone, and underneath an inscription, in Old English letters, stating that his four brothers were imprisoned here. In another room is the word Jane cut, which is said to refer to Lady Jane Grey, and to have been cut by her husband. ”

“ Guildford, as the queen was pleased to call her, was the wife of Sir William Guildford, controller of the royal household, who eventually stood godfather to that unfortunate Guildford Dudley who became the husband of Lady Jane Grey. If we may believe King Louis, he had certainly some justification for wishing Lady Guildford out of his sight, since she exasperated him to such an extent that he told Worcester that “rather than have such a woman about my wife, I would liever be without a wife.... ”

“ She insisted he should be only a Duke, and suspected that his family had given her poison for it. This undoes the usual romance of "Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley;"—and thus it is that the possession of too much power spoils almost every human being, practical or theoretical. Lady Jane came out of the elegancies and tranquillities of the schools, and of her Greek and Latin, to find her Platonisms vanish before a dream of royalty. ”

“ He spoke of Lady Mildred Cooke and the Lady Jane Grey as the two most learned women in England; and summed up his praises of the latter in the remark that "however illustrious she was by her fortune and royal extraction, this bore no proportion to the accomplishments of her mind, adorned with the doctrine of Plato and the eloquence of Demosthenes."
Her illustrious rank, her piety and her erudition necessarily made the Lady Jane an object of special interest to the leaders of the Reformed Church in England and on the continent. ”

“ And Lady Oakburn took Jane's hand and sobbed over it. The trouble she had brought upon Lady Jane, the estrangement caused by her between Jane and her father, had been the one thorn in the countess's wedded life.
On the following morning Judith went abroad to make certain purchases for her mistress, and in passing along Piccadilly she encountered Stephen Grey—now Dr. Grey, as you have heard. The two stopped, mutually surprised and delighted: it is so pleasant to meet an old face from one's native place, no matter what the social degree. ”

“ In the reign of Edward VI it was converted into a mint, but was now refurnished for the reception of Prince Philip. It is not likely that either the Lady Frances, or her daughters Katherine and Mary, were included in the state procession that started for Westminster from Suffolk Place early in the morning of the 28th of August. The tragedy of Lady Jane was too fresh in the minds of the people for it to be prudent to recall it too forcibly by the presence in a public function of the mother and sisters of the numerous victims. ”

“ This favour being granted, he threw back his cloak, and appeared, a blaze of cloth of gold, of glittering damascened armour and sparkling jewels, to break sixteen lances in honour of the queen. Again, when Queen Mary was his bride, and the court went a-maying at Shooters Hill, he devised a sort of pastoral play, and with Jane Grey’s paternal grandfather, Thomas, Marquis of Dorset, disguised himself and his merry men as palmers, in gowns of grey satin with scallop-shells of pure gold and staves of silver. ”

“ Of the relations existing between Jane and the Prince’s sisters there is little more mention; but the entry by Mary Tudor in a note-book of the gift of a gold necklace set with pearls, made “to my cousin, Jane Gray,” shows that the two had met in the course of this summer, and would seem to indicate a kindly feeling on the part of the older woman towards the unfortunate child whom, not eight years later, she was to send to the scaffold.30 Could the future have been laid bare it would perhaps not have been the victim who would have recoiled from the revelation with the greatest horror. ”

“ They are described as very good-looking young women, and Jane was even considered to be one of the most learned of her time. Shortly after the departure of Prince Philip, Lady Jane Seymour, who was very delicate, fell ill, and the queen allowed Lady Katherine to go with her to her mother, the Duchess of Somerset’s house at Hanworth, which Mary had recently restored to her, and where the young Earl of Hertford was staying. As may be imagined, the courting which had begun at Hampton Court was continued, with renewed vigour, at Hanworth, Lady Jane Seymour being Lady Katherine’s confidante. ”

“ On Whit-Sunday (probably May 21) 1553, the day on which Lady Jane became the bride of Lord Guildford Dudley, Katherine was married, or rather, contracted—she was only thirteen years old at the time—to Henry, Lord Herbert, eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke, who was just a little over nineteen. After the ceremony (it was no more than a ceremony) , the very youthful “bride” lived, according to custom, under her father-in-law’s roof at Baynard’s Castle, the ancient palace on the Thames, within the walls of which Pembroke proclaimed his allegiance to Mary on the last day of Queen Jane’s reign. ”

“ Lady Katherine Grey’s first appearance at the court of the queen, her cousin, was on the occasion of Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain in July 1554, when she is mentioned as being among the ladies who rode in that startling red-lacquered chariot, lined with crimson velvet and specially constructed for the purpose, that so delighted contemporaries, and conveyed Her Majesty and her ladies over the very rough roads between London and Winchester, rendered still more dreadful by an almost incessant downpour of rain which had lasted for some weeks. ”

“ The Lady Frances and her husband, the Duke of Suffolk, [55] never seem to have destined Lady [94] Katherine, as they did her sister Jane, to play any very conspicuous part in history. Jane they set aside and educated, coached—or better, “crammed”—to be the head of the Protestant party in England, and, as such, either to share the Throne with her cousin, Edward VI, or else to occupy it alone, instead of the Catholic Princess Mary, or of Elizabeth, whose religious opinions were not at this time clearly defined. ”

“ Although the French greeted the queen heartily, it was noticed that they “became overcast and sour” as they looked on the magnificent but defiant figure of the Duke of Suffolk, as he rode, in his silver armour, on the right side of the queen’s litter, whilst on the left cantered that stalwart nobleman, Thomas Grey, first Marquis of Dorset, who was destined by a curious and unexpected event to become the grandfather of Her Majesty’s ill-fated grandchildren, the Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey. ”

“ It may be that, apart from the abortive Spanish plot for the abduction of Lady Katherine, some other conspiracy was on foot to place her on the Throne, and that Lord John Grey was cognizant of this scheme. Really the Greys’ motto might well have been “Save me from my friends,” for their worst enemies were their most eager supporters—Lady Jane’s execution was the immediate result of her father’s insurrection; and Hales’s attempt to vindicate Lady Katherine’s honour, only served to increase Elizabeth’s anger against her and hers. ”

“ When at last death released this queen of woes from her suffering, and her sister, who had been hastily summoned from Hatfield, rode triumphantly to London to succeed her and attend her obsequies, Lady Katherine Grey and her sister Lady Mary walked from St. James’s Palace to Westminster Abbey in the solemn funeral procession of a queen who ought to have been beloved, but who, owing to circumstances beyond her control, died hated and defamed as “Bloody Mary.” ”

“ She liked Frederick Grey herself beyond anyone she knew; but what of Lady Jane? Would she deem him a suitable parti for Lucy? Would she not rather condemn him as entirely unsuitable?—and how should she herself answer to Lady Jane for her lax care of Lucy? Care?—as applied to love? Lady Oakburn in her self-condemnation forgot that the one is rarely a preventive to the other. She did the best that she could do. In her open straightforwardness she wrote that hasty letter to summon Lady Jane; Lucy meanwhile remaining entirely ignorant of the discovery and its results. ”

“ Are you not tired to death?" he asked, pantingly, and fanning himself with his soft hat as they left the gloomy building, and, after looking at the spot where Ann Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were beheaded, went back to the office where they dismissed their guide. ”

“ Elizabeth had made up her mind that, should the Lady Robert Dudley conveniently depart this life at an early date, she would marry the widower. All these and many other open and covert attacks on the queen’s character were damaging her good name with the people, to such an extent, indeed, that it was actually proposed to dethrone her and to replace her by some more suitable successor. The English Catholics naturally favoured the Queen of Scots, but Katherine Grey was preferred by Spain. ”

“ In the beginning of the year 1568, Lady Mary Grey’s position was complicated by the death of her sister Lady Katherine, which exposed her to the danger of being chosen the figure-head of any party that professed belief in the legitimacy of Henry VIII’s will and Edward VI’s “Devise for the Succession.” There is reason to believe that Mary, warned by her sister’s fate, had made up her mind formally to renounce her right to the Throne, lest unscrupulous persons might force her, as they had forced her sister Jane, into this false position. ”

“ See Suffolk Dorset, Marquis of, afterwards Duke of Suffolk. See Suffolk Dudley, Lord Guilford, married to Lady Jane Grey, 196 seq., 221, 222, 229, 237, 238, 283; attainted and sentenced, 284-6, 289, 316, 320; executed, 321, 322 — Sir Ambrose, 284 — See Warwick and Northumberland Edward, Prince, afterwards Edward VI., 1; education, 22, 23; relations with Lady Jane, 28; and with Elizabeth, 29; his coronation, 62; his uncles, 83-85, 134-8, 162, 163, 169-71; illness, 172, 173, 175; religious scruples, 176; dying, 189, 193, 194, 199; his will, 202-7; death, 209 ”